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The paper is basically like this (spoiler alert): “Some random user on Reddit posted a picture claiming that this is the longest straight line path on water po
by ventana 1mo ago
The paper is basically like this (spoiler alert):
“Some random user on Reddit posted a picture claiming that this is the longest straight line path on water possible on the Earth. We implemented a smart algorithm to solve this problem, found the elevation data, ran our algorithm... yes, that random user was right. Also, here's the longest path on land.”
Thanks, I really enjoyed reading it, even though I hoped that they would disprove the original claim!
Edit: here are the gcmap links to the two paths: sea [1], land [2].
[1]: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=25%B017%27N+66%B040%27E-58%B037%27N+162%B014%27E%0D%0A&MS=wls&PC=red&PT=l&RC=navy&DU=nm http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=25%B017%27N+66%B040%27E-58%B037...
[2]: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=24%B033%27N+118%B038%27E-37%B02%27N+8%B055%27W&MS=wls&PC=red&RC=navy&DU=nm http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=24%B033%27N+118%B038%27E-37%B02...
- comrade1234 1mo agoI opened Apple Maps in globe mode and I still have trouble visualizing the water path.
- pdpi 1mo agoDoes it help to point out that the water path looks suspiciously like the day/night line on a map? Like this: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5477/ https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5477/
- newtwentysix 1mo agoyes!! why is that ? :)
- yorwba 1mo agoThe day/light line is a great circle. The "straight line paths" are great-circle segments.
- srean 1mo agoIt's going South and then trying to close the loop from behind. It gets interrupted by land before the loop closes. Hope it makes sense.
- turbocon 1mo agoOpen the linked paper and scroll down, they have images of the path on a globe as well as the flat map view.
- cubefox 1mo agoThey only identify the Reddit user as "kepleronlyknows", but in the Reddit thread [1] he links to his video visualization [2], where his user name is Patrick Anderson. Before he made the video visualization using Google Earth, he actually went to the library and used a string on a real globe. [3] 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/15mwai/the_longest_straight_line_you_can_sail_almost/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/15mwai/the_longest... 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpQwuGueeoA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpQwuGueeoA 3: https://imgur.com/a/great-circle-2hYFM https://imgur.com/a/great-circle-2hYFM
- alok-g 1mo agoAdding: The two paths respectively are about 80% and 28% of the earth's circumference.
- kromokromo 1mo agoKudos to whoever built tiled clouds background on the gcmap site.
- paganel 1mo agoThe Portugal to (approximately) Macao one is quite interesting, thanks for the links!